Social status and language comprehension

Abstract.— Previous research on differences in language use in relation to social status have dealt almost exclusively with language production. The present study investigated the comprehension of connected discourse by 116 adult Danes from two different socio-economic status groups, high status (HSES) and low status (LSES). On a task at the lexical level of comprehension (choosing between alternatives to two words in each of four texts) there appeared no differences between HSES and LSES subjects. At the structural level a difference ( p <0.05) was found in drawing conclusions from the texts, but the groups nevertheless agreed completely ( p <0.05) in underlining important segments of the texts. Thus the symmetry between production and comprehension hypothesized by Bernstein did not appear. The results are interpreted in accordance with a general model of language processing. It is suggested that in the future more attention should be paid to variables other than the purely sociological variable of social status or social class.     

Post‐traumatic functional recovery and reorganization in animal models: A theoretical and methodological challenge

Studies addressing cerebral functional localization face methodological and theoretical problems. Lesion experiments expect that when a functionally specialized structure is missing, its function can be deduced from the resulting impairments. Mostly, however, initial impairments are partially or fully eliminated through functional recovery. Apparently, such a recovery contradicts the notion of functional localization. In order to understand the mechanisms of recovery, improved methodology and a new theoretical framework are required. Insights into the mechanisms of recovery can be achieved by using “challenge” techniques, where functionally recovered individuals are exposed to organic and behavioral challenges, e.g. pharmacological manipulations or additional lesions, as well as modified test situations. Using such methods, a number of principles of functional recovery have emerged. We evaluate some of the available theories of post‐traumatic recovery against these principles and find that none of them can account for the principles. Finally, we present a new conceptual framework – the Reorganization of Elementary Functions (REF) model. This model reconceptualizes the term “function”, suggests mechanisms of post‐traumatic reorganizations, and resolves the contradiction between localization and functional recovery.     

ROBUST VIRTUE EPISTEMOLOGY AND EPISTEMIC ANTI‐INDIVIDUALISM

According to robust virtue epistemology, knowledge is a cognitive achievement, where this means that the agent's cognitive success is because of her cognitive ability. One type of objection to robust virtue epistemology that has been put forward in the contemporary literature is that this view has problems dealing with certain kinds of testimonial knowledge, and thus that it is in tension with standard views in the epistemology of testimony. We build on this critique to argue that insofar as agents epistemically depend on third‐party members of their epistemic community as many social epistemologists contend, then there will be cases where two agents differ epistemically despite being virtue‐theoretic duplicates. This means that robust virtue epistemology, at least insofar as it is understood along standard lines such that it endorses epistemic individualism, is also in tension with a central commitment of contemporary social epistemology.